The last time I was in an office Secret Santa exchange, I was given a package of scented soaps and whatnot. Except everyone there knew I was violently allergic to most perfumes, and whatever stunk that stuff up was certainly no exception.
I’m glad I don’t have to do that any more.
Our participation is optional and I don’t, the reason being that my office does the nasty one where you get to steal other people’s gifts. I’d probably cry or otherwise embarass myself. Or end up with the skeevy “sexy” gift that someone always seems to sneak into the mix. A couple of years ago (not at this office) there was a vibrating pen making the rounds.
I’m actually organising my office’s secret santa this year, and it’s the first year we’ve done opt-in instead of opt-out. I’m hoping this will increase the general quality of the gifts!
I hate, hate,hate Kris Kringle - I’ve been here long enough that I can opt out, but for my first year at the job it wasn’t optional.
I’d been there for two months, and our department had just been amalgamated with another department which we didn’t have anything to do with and who worked in another site. Needless to say, we’d never met any of them.
I drew someone named ‘Jay’.
No-one had heard of this person, nor had my boss. I took it to the head of department (who’d been in a room with the other mob), and asked her if she knew anything about Jay.
“Nope.”
Well, it was honest. “Any idea what age? Roughly?”
“No.”
“Male or female?”
“It could be either, couldn’t it?”
“That’s the problem.”
“Do you know anyone called Jay”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Are they a guy or a girl?”
“Uh, it’s kinda complicated.”
The Jay I knew - very, very vaguely - was M2F. Hormones, but not planning surgery, and had chosen the name to be as androgynous as humanly possible.
The departmental head took a very different view of me from that point on. I’ve got no idea what I ended up getting for Jay, but I remember it went over slightly better than the person who got the bulemic diabetic a gift certificate to Donut King. He pled that he was the only person in the team that didn’t know either of those things about her.
The greatest one, though, was the manager who was one year given the Fist of Adonis. They tried to do a traceback to find out who’d given it to him. It turned out that one of the people on his team had drawn his name and all the other team members had chipped in.
I laughed out loud when I read this. I’ve seen pictures of **ivylass **in some of the photo threads, and I just imagined your face when you open a gift box containing a soap dish! Priceless! And if ivylad didn’t smirk when you showed it to him when you got home, he’s a better man than I am!
I’m with you, Khadaji. I also feel the same way about people at work wanting to celebrate birthdays. Work is work and I save personal celebrations for well, my personal friends and family. Not to say I haven’t made a few lifelong friends at different places where I have worked. Just not forced it. Don’t much feel like having happy birthday sung to me and having to cut a cake in front of everyone at work. Also don’t feel like contributing money when it’s someone else’s turn unless I like you and feel close to you.
While everyone is here, maybe one of you peeps who like to organize these things could explain WHY you like to force work “celebrations” down people’s throats…
I had to google “fist of adonis.” (Don’t google it at work, kids!)
That’s hilarious. Did he open it in front of everyone.
ETA–I just thought of something–you know when someone gives you a sweater or something, and everyone cheerfully urges you to try it on? Well…I think you know where I’m going with this.
Yep. There was pretty much the exact reaction you’d expect.
Stray threads? How do you not set yourself on fire? If I tried that, I’d be one big fireball pretty quick.
I was hoping that this thread had something to do with Jennifer Aniston.